It’s 1952, and you’ve been called to be a ward teacher – what we now call a home teacher. Here’s your shiny new Study Guide and Report Book …
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… with its instructions on the inside front cover.
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You’ll need to record pertinent facts about the members of the families assigned to you.
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Every month you’ll report your visits to your ward teaching leader. Note that you’ll also be reporting your own attendance at church meetings, as well as that of your assigned families.
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The ward clerk needs your help, too, to keep track of important transitions among your families.
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And here are the lessons you’ll be giving to your families each month. Note that January’s lesson was included in last year’s book, just as the lesson for January 1953 is included in this year’s book. There are so many manuals and programs and other materials that need to be printed and distributed at the beginning of the year that we give you January’s materials early, just in case. We don’t want home – er, ward – teaching to get lost in the shuffle. [But either I somehow skipped copying the page with January 1953’s lesson, or — more likely, since December’s lesson is on a page by itself — it wasn’t in the book, although a later page with January materials is there. Sorry — I have no real explanation.]
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And here are some handy little slips to leave with your families, reminding them of the point of the lesson and giving them the scripture references for them to consider during the month. [Again, materials seem to be incomplete — there is no slip for February 1952, although there is one for January 1953.]
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Eight families! And I have trouble with 3. I am glad they gave the reason for 12 entries else I should have felt worse yet.
So we have the traditional definition of family, and it doesn’t seem to include a need for marriage. 😉
I once moved into a ward about 30-some years ago and was assigned eight families. My assigned companion was less-active and the only active family out of those assigned attended another ward.
I’m glad we didn’t have all that paperwork and boxes to check! How many do you think actually did that?
Nevertheless, the Lord can accomplish miracles sometimes if we just show up. I had one family I visited (alone) and went back and said to my wife who had been assigned to visit-teach there, “Good luck!” The husband had been puffing away on his cigarette as he told me how they never go to church.
The next Sunday, I was surprised to see them in church. I sat by them and talked for a bit. I regularly visited their home. They got called as ward missionaries. They got themselves ready and my wife and I went to the Temple with them when they were sealed.
I once asked him how he was able to kick the smoking habit. He said that every time he lit up, he would see my face and the faces of the full time elders he worked with. Then he would put the cig out.
Sometimes all it takes to be a home teacher is to show up.
I should probably blog that story but I guess I just did.
I remember my father being a Ward Teacher in our branch on the Island of Crete. This was the late 50’s, early 60’s. He would read the message and give the family a copy of the message. He would record the visit in his book, I think it was light blue. I went with him though I was very young (eightish) or so. Great memories.
Mex, if I run across a copy in a light blue cover, I’ll make a note of the date to help you pin down your memory. It’s a wonderful one.
In the ancestral journal I am currently transcribing, Franklin Stanley was called as a ward teacher in 1855 and notes going out with his brother. So far I am about 7 months in, and he has only mentioned going once, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it. (The entire Martin/Willie handcart rescue later in the journal gets 3 lines.) His dying father asked him to keep a journal to keep track of the family business, and he followed that advice very closely.
It was about fifteen years ago, my family and my father-in-law (now 77) were both in Utah, and we made a side trip together to his hometown in Idaho. He showed us around the places he used to know, and at one point his mind turned to his first ward teaching assignment to the families who used to live on the street we were looking at, and among the things he spoke of was a book like this one.
My mother-in-law said that in her childhood home, a high backed chair would be set in front of the family for the ward teacher. He would then stand behind the chair, using it as a podium, while addressing the family. I don’t know if this idea of the visit as a ‘mini-sacrament meeting’ was a local thing, or if this was done elsewhere.
Sad to say that I am old enough to remember seeing one of these in our home, belonging to my father, and vague, vague memories of ward teachers coming to our house with that book in hand.
Like kevinf, I remember my father and grandfather with books like theses. I also remember the ward teachers coming to our home. I seem to remember that at the end of the year, my father would keep his book and we children would play with it having fun tearing out the messages on their perforated lines and filling in all of the empty spaces where reporting was entered.